Although the last season of Dexter (Netflix) became somewhat, well, icky even by the serial killer’s standards, a constant luminous joy was the performance of Jennifer Carpenter, who took the standard role of crime-fighting sidekick and gave it some real texture and warmth.

Watching Carpenter over eight tortured seasons, I thought – the sky’s the limit for that lady. I was partly right. Her future was Limitless on Sky although she does find herself still tethered to the crime-fighting sidekick role.

The makers of Limitless, the TV series, have made a better fist of the material than the makers of Limitless, the unremarkable film starring Bradley Cooper, who makes a small-screen cameo.

The angle – pill-popping mega-brain fish-out-of-water joins crime-fighting op – is a congested market but some neat direction (from The Amazing Spider-Man’s Marc Webb) lifts it from the norm. I have a horrible feeling, though, that the antics of cheeky chappie hipster hero Brian Finch (Jake McDorman) are going to grate p-r-e-t-t-y quickly.

This £20million production is class from top to tale – from the A-lister cast (Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Colman) to the exotic locations; from the Bond trappings to the authenticity of the source material.

Tinker, Tailor author John Le Carre jumped easily from Cold War to Arab Spring, recognising that faithless back stabbing in Savile Row suits is a transferable commodity.

As always with Le Carre, it is never what is said, it is the menace beneath the surface that does for the weak-willed and unsuspecting.

As cut-glass hotel helper Jonathan Pine engaged with billionaire cold fish and arms trader Richard Roper, his wasn’t the only stomach that churned.